Page 16 of Hate To Love You

The bird goes whizzing by and lets out another deathly scream.

Patience covers both her ears and shoots me a dirty look. “Do something!” she screams loudly as both her ears are covered and blocked. “But don’t hurt it either!”

I’m not going to make any jokes about how she rather save the bird than me. That’s probably true at this point. I’m hoping that, in the future, I can make a better impression. Sleeping with boxers on in case of an emergency would probably be a great start so I don’t end up sunning her again.

Is it wrong that I’m just rooted to the floor, staring at Patience’s startlingly wide green eyes, her flushed cheeks, the messy blonde strands that I ache to run my fingers through, and her angry, pouty mouth that I’d very much like to kiss?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhrrrrooooooo!

That’s the bird, and its scream has a new intensity to it. It wants to get the hell out of here. It’s probably scared enough to have a heart attack right now.

We both duck as it comes careening down the hallway, flapping madly and flying a path that makes no sense. It bounces off the wall and hits the one across from it. Then, it resumes flapping and screaming in the other direction, toward the living room.

“Now!” Patience yelps. “Before it kills itself in here.”

The scene must look awfully funny—me going racing after that deathly screaming bird with Patience’s shredded pajama bottoms looped around my waist and one hand keeping them from falling down and giving her a full view of my ass end this time.

The living room windows all have screens on them, but I wouldn’t mess around with that anyway. It would take too much time. I want to get the screaming bloody murder bird out as badly as he wants to be gone from this place. I have no idea how he even got in here.

I throw open both doors, which takes a hot minute seeing as I only have one hand, and the murder bird gets the idea. He goes screeching and whooping right on by into the great black beyond of the night. Warm air rushes in at me and hits me all over, the humidity already creating a fine sheen of sweat on my skin even though I’m only standing halfway outside.

A swim would be nice right about now. Well, you know what? Why not?

I quickly close the doors and turn around. I find Patience leaning up against the wall right where it arches into a curved doorway to go into the living room. All the doorways are curved here, not just the outside one. It’s a mushroom house, and it has to look the fairytale part, so straight square doorways aren’t a thing.

She’s beautiful like that, in her extra long T-shirt and shapely legs on display, but only from the knee down. Her hair is so unruly that my hands ache to run through it and finger comb out the tangles. It still looks so soft. I want to press my fingers to her neck, to feel her wild pulse beating after that scare. I want to soothe her with my lips and assure her everything is going to be alright in a gentle whisper. I want to watch as her eyes close and her head falls back, giving me more room to lick and suckle her sweet skin. And I want to hear that final sigh of relief before her breathing changes and her heart starts to pound harder.

Yeah. Freaking. Right.

It’s not going to happen. I don’t think Patience really hates me like she says she does, but she’s a long way away from forgiving me. And anything physical? I know some people would argue that it can be done out of rage or hatred, but that’s not for me. I would only ever want to be close to her because she wants it too. She’s more likely to cuddle up with the death bird than to come to me for comfort.

Ever.

I wanted so badly to save her. When I came back to town, I heard about everything that had gone wrong for her and witnessed my dad’s animosity firsthand. I wanted to take her away from that and ensure her dad would be okay. That she would be too. I wanted to help them both. Give them a future.

But I only made things worse.

However, I can still make it right. I’m going to make it right. Even if it costs me everything, I will make sure Patience and her dad are okay. My dad too. I’m going to try everything in my power to make both our dads friends again. Which was what I was thinking about, that strategy or lack of one, right when the death bird went screeching like an alarm in the house.

Right now, we both just stand there. Patience bites down on her bottom lip while I’m frozen, half wearing her pajamas.

Bitty Kitty saunters into the room, making her adorable little chirping noise at me. She comes to me first and rubs herself on my leg. I bend down and scratch her head. She chuffs at me as if to ask what all the fuss earlier was about.

“It’s all good now. The bird is gone.”

“Thank goodness for that. Devil bird.” Patience thinks I’m talking to her. And maybe I am, through the skunk. God, I’ve become a special kind of coward. I want to apologize for accidentally showing her my junk, but she makes a noise between her teeth and walks off.

I’m at the perfect angle to see her feet go out of my field of vision.

Tomorrow morning. I’ll apologize tomorrow morning. And I’ll figure out what to do about our dads. We both will. Together. Not like the old days, where we’d put our heads together and could dream up anything, but like the new days. The good new days.

“Looks like I owe her a new pair of pajama bottoms,” I tell Bitty Kitty. “You hungry? I could use a snack.”

She twists around my legs again.

“Skip the snack because it won’t sit right for a swim? Good idea. A very good idea. You’re going to come out and watch me?” I say to Bitty Kitty.

She won’t wander off, not even at night. She would never go into the woods without me. I like night swims. Maybe not in the middle of the night, but swimming in the dark is nice. Bitty Kitty loves to curl up on one of the lawn chairs. She’ll watch for a few minutes and then do her skunk guard by curling up into a tight ball and passing out, likely from boredom. It’s only so interesting to watch a dude swim laps for so long, I’m sure. Whenever I get out, she always wakes up and follows me in.

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